


The Green Place

by supergirrl



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Modern Era, San Francisco, War Rig Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5811937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergirrl/pseuds/supergirrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the War Rig family goes to San Francisco to support Toast's presentation at a conference, they find green in an unexpected place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Green Place

**Author's Note:**

> I presented at a conference in San Francisco earlier this month, and while I was there I visited the Muir Woods. They were so beautiful and peaceful, which inspired me to write this little fic. Enjoy!

Although they had arrived very late the night before, morning came early for the excited inhabitants of the ‘Jo Bassa, party of eight’ cabin. When Toast got the news that she had been selected to present her research at a conference in San Francisco, her sisters had all decided they would go in order to support her. Furiosa didn’t want them making the long drive alone-none of them had more than a few years of driving experience-so she decided she would go too. Wherever Capable went, her boyfriend Nux inevitably followed, and somehow, when they were loading up the van to go, Max Rockatansky had wound up in the front seat beside Furiosa. None of them had ever seen the famous redwood forest before, and so it was decided that they would spend their first day in San Francisco at Muir Woods.

Furiosa drove, of course: no one else was comfortable with maneuvering their minivan-affectionately named the War Rig-through San Francisco traffic and around the hairpin turns on the road to Muir Woods. Out of deference to his bad knee, Max rode shotgun and helped navigate. Angharad and Toast sat in the middle row of seats, intently discussing Toast’s presentation, with Cheedo on Toast’s other side. No one wanted to ride in the back with Capable and Nux, what with his proneness to car sickness in addition to their, as Toast described it, ‘barf-inducing coupleness’, but Dag lost a spirited game of rock paper scissors and was banished to the back seat. She was making the best of it, leaning forward to talk to Cheedo while giving a green-faced Nux a wide berth. Capable was rubbing his back, plastic bag at the ready, murmuring words of comfort to him.

Fortunately, the drive was challenging enough that Furiosa could tune out the clamor of her passengers, focusing on the road and Max’s mumbled directions. After battling their way through Sausalito, they finally made it to the park. As they stood in line to get their tickets, excitement began to build within the group.

“I can’t believe we’re standing where they filmed Star Wars!” During their long drive, Toast had carefully arranged her hair into two fluffy buns above her ears, in homage to her favorite Princess Leia hairstyle.

“Wasn’t there an episode of Parks and Rec set here too?” Cheedo asked as she stood on her tip-toes, trying to see over Nux’s head.

Dag said, in her usual deadpan, “Season six, episode twenty-one. Leslie is speaking at a National Parks Conference and Ben is trying to get free wifi for everyone in Pawnee. Michelle Obama guest starred, and it’s my third favorite episode overall.”

At this point, they were all used to Dag’s nonchalant use of her encyclopedic memory, so her comment went unremarked as they finally got their tickets.

 

Once they entered the woods themselves, the playful chatter died down. There was something so awe-inspiring yet utterly peaceful about the forest, it made normal conversation seem superfluous, distracting. Cheedo and Dag drifted slightly ahead, arm in arm, as Dag shared tree facts with the group. As they crossed one of the bridges spanning the stream that ran through the forest, Cheedo insisted that they stop and take a selfie, something easier said than done with eight people.

An older couple passing by smiled at them, and one of the women-who was covered in intricate blue tattoos-paused. “Would you like me to get a picture of you all?”

Pleasantly surprised by her friendliness, Furiosa handed the woman her phone. They gathered in close, Furiosa standing in the back with her right arm around Dag and her prosthetic resting lightly on Angharad’s waist. Cheedo and Capable giggled as they picked up a squealing Toast, who twisted sideways in their arms to smile at the camera. At the last second, Nux-who had previously been supporting Toast’s feet-noticed Max standing awkwardly off to the side and dragged him into the picture, throwing an arm over his shoulder.

The old woman proved to be technologically savvy for someone her age, snapping several photos of them before returning the phone to Furiosa.  

As she and her partner walked away, hand-in-hand, the other woman smiled and said, “You have a beautiful family.”

Furiosa thanked her politely-surely she didn’t think all six of them were her and Max’s kids?-and looked down at the picture on her phone. Everyone looked so happy; even Max was smiling, in his awkward way. They were all virtually unrecognizable from the group that had escaped Joe Moore’s compound five years earlier. The rage that had burned off Angharad like a flame was gone, vanished with Toast’s dead eyes and Cheedo’s hunched shoulders. Dag’s smile was one of genuine joy, not bitterness, and Capable leaned into Nux with the comfort of someone who has found their other half. Nux was utterly transformed from the broken shell of a man he had been before Capable, with a healthy pallor to his skin and hair on his head.

The girls were relaxed and content, secure in their freedom, and Nux had flourished once he was away from Joe’s poison. The stiffness Furiosa had carried for years seemed to have melted away, and Max-although he had only been Joe’s prisoner for a brief time-looked years younger than the haggard man who’d been caught up in their escape.

Even though none of them were related by the law or blood, they were undoubtedly a family. Her family.

The thought that she-Furiosa Jo Bassa, stolen from her mother, given to a retired colonel turned gang leader who had forced her to commit atrocities-could have any kind of family, let alone this perfect one, made her eyes burn in a way she hadn’t felt in decades. And knowing that her girls, the brilliant, angry young women she had met a lifetime ago who refused to be used as things, had grown into happy, functional people with accomplishments and goals, full lives that could no one could ever take from them, threatened to make her tears spill. She blinked a few times, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“You alright?” Angharad was watching her with a concerned expression on her face. She was hypersensitive to the moods of Furiosa and her sisters, understanding better than anyone how the traumas of their past could sometimes come back at the most unexpected moments.

Furiosa took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Sometimes…it’s just hard to believe all this is real.”

“I know what you mean, I didn’t think this kind of happiness was possible. But it is, and it’s ours.” Angharad smiled, looking around at the massive trees towering over them, her scars seeming less pronounced in the cool green light. “By the way, when we get back I have someone I’d like you to meet. My girlfriend, Rey.”

“That’s a nice name.” Furiosa was glad for Angharad. She had struggled more with interacting with new people than her sisters; unlike them, she wore constant reminders of their violent past on her face, which made people uncomfortable around her. Angharad deserved someone who didn’t just see her as just a ‘beautiful yet tragically damaged face’-as one asshole reporter had put it-but appreciated her warm, loving personality and sharp mind. “Bring her over for dinner sometime, so she can meet everyone.”

“Perfect! Just don’t let Capable do any of the cooking, I don’t want to poison her!”

Capable, who’d paused at the foot of the bridge to take a selfie with Nux, twisted around and said indignantly, “Hey! I heard that!”

Angharad flashed Furiosa a quick grin, then hurried down the bridge to give Capable an apologetic hug.

Furiosa watched them walk down the trail to where Toast, Cheedo, and Dag waited impatiently. She contemplated the reverent expression on Nux’s face whenever he looked at Capable, wondering if today he would finally get down on one knee and offer Capable the ring he’d been carrying around for weeks. A wedding would be nice; it would mean the Wedding Channel subscription Cheedo had asked for as a birthday gift would finally pay off.

Although she wanted to hike, the cross-continental drive from the last few days was taking its toll, and she sat down on the wide railing of the bridge. For a moment Furiosa shut her eyes, tipping her head back and losing herself in the quiet babble of the stream and the cool forest air on her face. If she tried hard enough, she could imagine that she was a child again, playing in the woods behind her mother’s house, carefree in the way that only someone who has always been protected can be.  

A sudden sound startled her, and her eyes jerked open, instantly on her guard. Max was standing in front of her, his hands hovering apologetically, and she relaxed.

He mumbled, “Can I sit?”

She nodded, and he settled down on the bridge beside her awkwardly. They sat in peaceful silence for a few minutes before Max spoke.

Gesturing vaguely at the plethora of natural beauty surrounding them, he muttered, “’s nice, this place. Lots of green.”

She hummed in agreement, knowing what he meant. The green wasn’t just in the leaves of the giants that shaded them, or the grasses growing alongside the stream. It was the freedom, the peace that this quiet forest seemed to bring, something that they all carried inside them now. This quiet, odd man, who spoke rarely but understood so much, was never someone she would have expected to be part of their family, but she was glad that he was.

Furiosa slid her hand across the smooth wood of the bridge until it bumped into his. For a moment he leaned into the contact, then ran his thumb across her knuckles in a gesture of awkward yet tender affection.

Warmth flared inside her, and she smiled. Although she would never again be the trusting girl who climbed trees and thought the world couldn’t touch her, she was happy.

With her family, she was whole.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Angharad's girlfriend is Rey from Star Wars. I ship it.


End file.
